The Louisville Sports Commission announced that Stanford’s Owen Marecic, a two-way player for one of the nation’s top teams, won the first Paul Hornung Award honoring the nation’s most versatile college football player. While I haven’t seen Stanford play, he certainly seems to deserve the honor.
Folks around here, though, surely were wishing that Kentucky’s Randall Cobb would pick up the new trophy. Cobb set a record during Saturday’s BVAA Compass Bowl for the most career all-purpose yards in Southeastern Conference history. Cobb was the model the award seemed designed for — an all-purpose back who ran back kicks, started from several positions on offense, and was a threat to do something exciting on every play.
Cobb’s talents were no match for a Pittsburgh defense that held the Cats to a single TD in a 27-10 pounding in Birmingham, a game that is likely the last in UK blue for the junior, who is mulling his future. In my experience, that means that he’s going to declare for the NFL draft as soon as he gets ready.
It would have been nice for Cobb to have played stupendously in the bowl game and picked up the Hornung Award on his way to the NFL. But when it comes to UK football, there aren’t many happy endings.
